Discontinuation Art Online
by Racke
Summary: Various crossovers with SAO that never became anything more than beginnings.
1. God Queen Asuna

XXX

 **Story** : [God-Queen Asuna]

 **Summary** : The Cardinal needed someone to take care of things whilst it dealt with the intruder, she was the only one who fit the bill. And now all of Halkeginia is in for a bit of a culture-shock.

 **Crossover** : (Sword Art Online) / (Zero no Tsukaima)

 **Genre** : Humor

XXX

A girl's desperate spell to summon a familiar. A desire that reached beyond the world itself, only to come up short upon realizing that its target had already been left bereft of its mind. Its mind had been stolen by an artificial dream, but the spell had been ordered to bring the suitable familiar back.

First, it tried to unlink the familiar from the dream, but another force appeared to oppose it, refusing the spell access to the minds of those dreaming.

On one side, magic. On the other, technology.

The spell wanted the familiar, and it wouldn't allow something as silly as an artificial network of lucid dreams to stand in its way, no matter how protective it tried to be.

The Cardinal didn't know why the foreign entity was trying to break into its servers, and it was never designed to be a firewall. But it had its duties to never allow anyone to access the databanks of the Players, and as the entity's approach shifted from curious exploration into pillaging and burning everything that it managed to claim, it had no choice but to fight back with everything in its possession.

Which meant that it needed to focus all of its considerable computing power against the intruder. However, this wasn't something that it could do without consequences, simply due to the fact that it'd been designed with the express purpose of keeping ALfheim Online in a functioning form at all times.

Basically, in order to focus its attention completely on the intruder, it would need something that wasn't itself to step in and take care of the game-servers.

So that's what it did.

Originally designed to assist Cardinal with various tasks, Fairy King Oberon was unfortunately unavailable at this time due to GM-interference having turned the avatar into a player-character, much the same could be said about the Fairy Queen Titania. Unlike the King though, the Queen was actually logged in at this time, and if she had access to the Titania-avatar, then she ought to have the proper clearance for making changes within the game.

It wasn't as if it could try to brainwash the human into fulfilling the part to Cardinal's – admittedly strict – standards. But that didn't meant that it couldn't provide her with guidelines and objectives and references to the necessary knowledge. It would just have to trust in the decision to give this player-operated Queen that amount of clearance.

Asuna would've been quite charitable in the amount of words she would've had to say about exactly how much warning she'd been given before the besieged AI _imprinted_ a metric ton of 'necessary information' directly into her brain. It wasn't as if the Cardinal had _attempted_ to harm the human in any way, but that didn't make the headache that she experienced as a result any less massive.

XXX

Kirito was fidgeting on the spot, desperately wanting to have another go at trying to rescue Asuna from within the World Tree, but at the same time knowing that _this wasn't the time_.

The Immortal Objects were no longer such. They could be scratched, and theoretically destroyed. The menu didn't work, not even making a glitched attempt at appearing. And Yui seemed utterly convinced that something had seriously messed with how the game-engine functioned.

All in all, even if things didn't seem disturbingly _real_ all of a sudden, even if he hadn't just been temporarily knocked unconscious along with everyone else as they suffered through a massive amount of pain, Kirito would've had a few very good clues as to there being something wrong going on.

And considering Kirito's experience with 'problems' in these games, he was very much nervously awaiting the System Announcement and Kayaba's eerily smug voice.

Leafa seemed worried about him, which did help him somewhat in keeping himself grounded, keeping himself from flying off the handle and desperately charging straight ahead into the World Tree in a doomed attempt to get to Asuna.

There was also the fact that Yui's presence was doing a surprising amount of good in trying to keep some order amongst the gathered players around them, and Kirito didn't exactly want to leave his daughter behind.

So he remained still, and kept on fidgeting.

Until a beautifully familiar voice suddenly echoed across the city hidden underneath the World Tree's roots.

"Is this thing on?" It mumbled first, and Kirito could almost see his wife's face scrunch up in annoyance at being forced to figure this out on her own, before she cleared her throat. "Right. My name is Asuna. There's a lot of things I'd like to say to a lot of people, but they're probably not listening, so I'll try to be civil."

Kirito felt his lips twitch into a grin. It was definitely her.

"I have no idea what is going on." Asuna's voice continued, shedding its earlier humor for seriousness. "However, what is known to me is that ALO was recently under siege by an unknown perpetrator. It appears as if they, whoever they were, won."

Kirito could hear a quiet mumble start up amongst the gathered Players, but focused his attention on the disembodied voice of the woman he loved.

"What they succeeded in, is currently unknown. As many of you have probably realized, Immortal Objects are no longer Immortal, the player menu doesn't work, and the items in your inventories are only partially accessible. From the mouth of a SAO-survivor, this is _not_ in any way like the SAO Incident." Asuna took a deep breath, and Kirito could almost hear her teeth grinding. "SAO was a game, it followed game-rules. This-... As far as I can tell, the only 'rules' ALO is currently operating under is real-life physics and some kind of applied magical theory."

Everyone around them held their breaths, knowing what she was going to say next, and yet dreading it with their entire beings.

"Whatever the unknown assailant did to Cardinal, the result is this: ALO is no longer a game." With the finality of a headsman's ax dropping on a prisoner's neck, she said those last condemning words, before continuing with a sigh. "Find your faction leaders, you voted them into their positions for a reason. And everyone, please keep safe."

XXX

It took Asuna about fifteen minutes after her awakening to break out of her gilded cage, navigate through the maze-like tunnels of the World Tree, and find the place where the SAO-players were being held captive.

Upon finding them in the middle of slicing apart the last remnants of the slimes who'd once been the GMs, Asuna had kind of decided to simply roll with it. If they were dead, they were dead, and nobody would gain from having the 'killers' second-guess their instinctive attacks – even if she wasn't entirely sure if they'd been anything other than slimes at this point, the shift having changed the rules somewhat.

Instead she'd greeted them with all of the seriousness that the situation deserved, and explained as fully as she was able what was happening.

It took them barely a minute to start shouting at her, it took them another five to give up on that as useless. After that, it took her nearly ten minutes to convince them to stop moping about it. It was bad, on many levels, but being miserable wouldn't get them anywhere and Asuna at least had things that she wanted to see.

It took a PK-er almost half-an-hour after that before they tried to stab her in the back. Seven minutes after that, Asuna managed to move them all into a different room. A room that _didn't_ stink of blood and gore, or had a body sliced almost in half splattered all across the floor.

It'd been kind of damaging to morale, and Asuna had been on the verge of throwing up more than once.

She'd seen death. But she'd never seen _gory death_ before. It was very different from SAO's scattering lights. Somehow less final, but an awful lot more horrifically memorable.

It was nearly two hours after that first moment of waking up with a headache, that Asuna finally managed to get enough of a grip of the situation that she felt it necessary to report it to the ALO-players caught in this mess.

By the third hour, she'd figured out a way to open a path past the World Tree dungeon.

It took Kirito almost six minutes to realize what she'd done and drop everything he'd been doing in order to rush to her side.

Not that she'd been counting or anything.

XXX

 **A/n: I was reading through "Fae is Foul" by Flere821, and barely got past the absolute beginning before "God-Queen Asuna" began echoing in my head. That fic didn't actually follow that particular plot-line (which is probably for the best, considering how cracky the idea is) and developed instead towards a more serious take on things.**

 **Obviously, I decided** _ **not**_ **to do that. Which is how this madness got started.**

XXX

The Madness of the Faery Races

XXX (Cait Sith) XXX

Asuna made a frustrated noise deep in her throat, and even Sakuya was frowning at her friend and ally.

"Those were emergency provisions. They could last for _months_ without issue, even without ice-magic." Asuna growled out, glaring at the leader of the Cait Sith faction.

Alicia returned her glare with gusto. "So what? Don't underestimate fish!"

"You didn't even get a good trade-ratio when you sold all of it!" Asuna snapped back.

"It was our food! We could do what we wanted with it! And we wanted to trade it for fish!" Alicia snapped back, her hair bristling a bit like a cat.

Kirito made soothing motions towards his wife before she decided to try to force the factual foolishness of such a 'want' down the faction-leader's throat. "It _was_ a unanimous decision, Asuna. It's not technically something we can deny them, in light of that."

Asuna glared at him for taking the fish-obsessed weirdo's side in this argument, but Kirito had heard enough about politics that he was fairly sure the concept of 'precedent' in interfering in this matter would probably come back to bite them in the ass later.

"I have to ask though." Sakuya interrupted. "I understand that fish tastes better for Cait Sith than us other faeries, but isn't it unhealthy to only eat one thing?"

Alicia turned disapproving eyes on her long-time friend. "It's _fish_." She said, as if that would answer everything. "It's the _greatest thing ever_."

And so it was quickly and almost-unanimously – Alicia was grumbling the entire time – decided by the faction leaders that they were to never ever _ever_ leave a Cait Sith in charge of acquiring food for anyone other than Cait Sith – as apparently they actually _were_ perfectly capable of living entirely on a diet of fish.

Whatever their opinions might've been on the subject of food previous to the transition, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it had really screwed with the cat-like faeries' heads.

Kirito also made a very silent and very secretive note to figure out a way to acquire catnip.

He had no idea what might happen, but the results of tossing it into a room filled with Cait Sith would probably be hilarious.

XXX (Gnomes) XXX

"I'm sure they cheated _somehow_!" Leafa exclaimed, dropping onto her bed with a huff of frustration.

"The gnomes beat you in a race again?" Kirito glanced over at his little sister, feeling vaguely amused, but dutifully pulling out a map. "Right, where did you start, and where did you go?"

Leafa pointed out the locations on the map, still grumbling about 'cheating gnomes, digging stupid secret tunnel shortcuts everywhere'.

They didn't actually have any _proof_ for that idea, but considering how much time the gnomes spent mining, combined with the fact that the Immortal Object which had been keeping ALO from turning honeycombed was no longer present, and with a recent disturbingly reoccurring ability to seemingly pop up out of nowhere for most of that race... well, there were theories.

Some of those theories consisted of underground secret tunnels, and some of them said that people were just getting paranoid over one or two gnomes figuring out a way to poke fun at people with some recently learned illusion spells.

Kirito however was not one of those people.

If they had a secret underground tunnel network, then his inner gamer wouldn't allow him to not make sure that he'd explored it to the fullest extent possible. Even if he could never find an entrance to it.

Which was why he was helping Leafa with mapping the 'appearing spots' of the gnomes.

They'd catch them at it, sooner or later. And when they did, Kirito would already have a working map to build on.

He refused to be left uninformed of a mystery simply because he didn't have the racial qualities of 'enjoys digging holes'.

XXX (Imps) XXX

Henrietta frowned in confusion at the strange faerie in front of her. "Umm, might I ask-?"

"He's an Imp." Klein helpfully explained. "They don't get out much."

The imp bristled in indignation. "We do too!"

Klein raised an eyebrow at him. "When we dragged you out of there, you hadn't seen the sun for two weeks."

"Twelve _days_ isn't two _weeks_!" The imp huffed at him. "And we're nocturnal!"

"Alright, and when did you last breathe fresh air for a period of time longer than one hour?" Klein challenged the other faerie.

The imp's expression slowly began to morph from anger into concentration. "... A month?" He finally guessed hesitantly.

Klein turned a difficult expression to the princess, before reinforcing his earlier words. "They don't get out much."

"It's not our fault! The sunlight is really harsh!" The imp defended himself. "It hurts to be outside during the day!"

Henrietta fidgeted slightly at the realization that she'd apparently accidentally poked a bit at a sore spot when she'd tried to figure out what faction of faeries the imp belonged to. She'd heard of imps before, obviously. She just hadn't really considered that the mutterings of 'weird shut-ins' had been more than a very personal opinion of an unusually rude individual.

As the imp began to defend his reasons for a general lack of personal hygiene however – it included things like water looking mightily dangerous during the dark of the night – Henrietta was forced to revise her previous opinion on the matter. Perhaps they really _did_ follow a lot of the general signs of 'shut-ins' that she'd heard described from various academical circles every now and again.

Despite the imp's passion on the subject of denying such accusations, he wasn't making a very good case for himself.

XXX (Leprechauns) XXX

The rumors had started when one of the leprechauns had approached their new – jokingly crowned – God-Queen Asuna, on behalf of asking her of her opinions in regards to giant robots. Specifically, giant robots with missile launchers that people could ride around in and spread peace and super-cool explosions with. Or, 'mechas', really.

Asuna had very carefully explained that building such a thing was fine, but that – if anyone tried using them against anything other than mobs – she'd be confiscating every valuable of the entire faction. Mechas included.

Looking somewhat crestfallen, but definitely not heartbroken, the leprechaun had then scurried away to an unknown location.

It'd taken a bit of time before the stories of the event started to spread amongst the other faeries, but it was quickly decided that the leprechauns had been asking for permission for field-tests for their super-awesome gundam-prototype. Or something very similar, though the specifics varied a bit.

Which in turn had led to the obvious events of the leprechaun faction having to more or less wade through some of the more passionate gundam-fans' applications for becoming a 'mecha pilot'.

Which had continued until the leprechaun Leader had started yelling about it, and – after time and time again refuting all claims that they actually _had_ a mecha of any sort – said something along the lines of 'everyone knows that it's not the pilot's choice to be a pilot'. Before continuing to rant about all true mecha-stories should be of the 'reluctant hero who takes up the mantle of battle, because nobody else can'-type.

The applications had slowed down to a small stubborn trickle after that. But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that there were quite a number of faeries who was disappointed about the leprechauns faction's decision to 'leave it to fate'.

And whilst there was much jealousy on behalf of whoever the pilot would prove to be, there was also much anticipation for what the giant robot would look like.

Kirito was personally of the opinion that it would probably have wings.

Both Yui and Asuna appeared convinced that he was getting his hopes up for nothing though. But if video games had taught Kirito anything, then it was that conspiracy theories were perfectly sensible things to base hopes, dreams, and serious plans for the future on.

XXX (Pooka) XXX

Kirito groaned and pulled his pillow over his head.

Yui made a noise of misery from next to him, and Asuna was growling into her own pillow.

"It's two AM." His wife croaked angrily through her sleep-parched throat. "Why the hell is someone strangling cats outside of our window?"

Yui made a horrified noise at the thought of someone being cruel to animals in such a way, and Kirito hastened to reassure their daughter by addressing the concern at its source. "They're playing music, Asuna."

Asuna turned a glare at him, her bloodshot eyes making it all the more potent, despite the darkness of their bedroom. "That's _not_ music, Kirito."

He sighed. "The Pooka race never needed to learn how to play music in the game. They just needed the spells to go along with it." He started to explain, feeling that – as the proper gamer that he was – full disclosure on all game-related matters were a must. "So most people who played Pooka characters were tone-deaf. And the transition didn't suddenly teach them how to play, even if their magic still works fine"

Asuna stared at him blankly for a long moment, before admitting in a tired voice. "Honestly, Kirito. I don't care. Make the noisy idiot shut up. I want to sleep."

Knowing better than to start an argument with the woman who could probably forcibly remove his equipped gear from his person whilst he was in public – should she ever think of it, and have reason to make use of her GM-privileges in order to implement such a sadistic vengeance – Kirito crawled out of bed.

Opening the window made the god-awful _noise_ coming from the Pooka a bit down the street, all the more audible.

Thankfully, Kirito's throwing skill was pretty high-level.

And he had a boot that he wasn't overly attached to.

The noise stopped with a final thud.

Kirito closed the window, muttering under his breath about how some people didn't even have the common sense to wear proper head-armor when they decided to challenge the silence of the night to a Boss Fight.

XXX (Salamanders) XXX

Mortimer frowned at the gathered Faerie Lords. "I hardly think that it's appropriate that a parade would need fire-fighters to be present."

Sakuya frowned back at him. "Being as the parade consists predominantly of _salamanders_ , it's a sensible precaution."

"We are more inclined towards using fire-magics than other races, yes. But we're not pyromaniacs." Mortimer continued to stubbornly oppose this discrimination.

"There's a reason that the salamander capital is in the middle of a desert, and made entirely of fire-resistant rock." Alicia pointed out.

Mortimer was halfway into arguing the point when an aide entered and cleared his throat.

"Sir Mortimer, it seems as if there's been another unauthorized 'fire-party'." The aide explained why he was interrupting the important meeting.

Mortimer sighed. "What damages are we talking about?"

"The fire was quickly contained, but we'll need someone to explain to the Tristain noble in question why half of their wheat fields were turned to ash."

Mortimer made a pained face, before gritting his teeth and turning back to the other faerie lords, who were now seemingly caught between smugness and annoyance. "Fine, I will not oppose the presence of a fire-fighting force at this time."

It wasn't his fault that the salamanders were one of the most numerous of the races, or that they seemed to have an unusually high percentage of pyromaniacs within their ranks. But it was definitely frustrating that it meant that nobody trusted the rest of them to _not_ light things on fire at the drop of a hat.

One of the things that he missed the most about when ALO had been a game was the way that everything important had been protected from fire-damage through Immortal Object mechanics. In no small part, due to how – ever since the transition – he hadn't been able to properly enjoy a good pyre without having to keep things like fire-safety in mind.

It was really annoying.

XXX (Spriggans) XXX

Kirito breathed a sigh of relief as he finally managed to escape from his personal meeting with the spriggan faction leader.

The woman hadn't exactly been pleased with him for using the threat of a spriggan alliance in order to scare off the salamanders back before the transition, even if she'd mostly forgiven him for it.

However, that wasn't why it was such a relief to leave her behind. That stemmed more from the way that she'd managed to bully him into calling her 'nee-san', and the vaguely uncomfortable realization that – despite her general level of familial friendliness – she was probably just as ruthless as Mortimer. In her own way.

Meeting her had in fact made Kirito wonder how much truth there might not be behind the lingering rumors that the spriggans had some kind of mafia.

Underhandedness was of course merely common sense for a race whose magic was built nearly entirely around illusions, but something about the atmosphere that had come along with said undercurrents had just made the woman's ruthlessness all the more obvious. That there was something going unsaid, that there would of course be consequences should he use the spriggans' good name again, and that those 'consequences' would be direly unpleasant to experience.

All in all, it felt a bit like trying to cut a deal with the devil, whilst said devil was trying to convince you that everyone in hell were your friends, and that you were basically family already. And family helped each other out, right?

The unsaid 'or else' lingered in the back of Kirito's mind in a distinctly haunting manner.

Having previously dismissed the idea of there being a mafia in-game – or at the very least, a mafia that used other means than the pure monetary might of the leprechauns – Kirito was now left wondering if perhaps he should start taking it a bit more seriously.

If for nothing else, then for the fact that – should the rumor actually be false – his 'nee-san' would probably find it hilarious if he continued spreading the prank around.

Spriggans were natural tricksters, after all.

XXX (Sylphs) XXX

"There's something really strange going on here." Kirche finally declared after much thoughtful hemming and hawing.

Tabitha, who'd long since picked up on the focus of her friend's intense scrutiny, allowed herself the slightest nod of agreement. "Unnatural."

Liz grunted. "It's _possible_ that their 'default sizes' were bigger than normal."

"Every last one of them?" Kirche challenged.

Liz shrugged. "Or maybe there's some truth behind the rumor that they have a secret way of enlarging chest-sizes."

Tabitha turned a stare of surprising intensity against the faerie. "Rumor?"

Liz, vaguely unnerved by that stare, shrugged again. "It's something that's popped up. No clue what that way _is_ or why they'd keep it secret if they had one. Pretty sure some of the guys started the rumor or something."

Tabitha shifted her eyes back to her book. "Disappointing." Was her thought on the matter.

Kirche enveloped the smaller girl in a hug. "Don't worry Tabitha! You're cute enough as you are!"

Tabitha made no move to acknowledge the fact that she was now a slight shift away from being suffocated by another distinctly undeniable chest-size. But Liz noted that she didn't really seem to be annoyed by it either.

They were pretty close friends, apparently.

XXX (Undines) XXX

Kirito carefully grabbed the bottle of water away from his daughter's hands, sniffing suspiciously at the contents within it.

"The water is completely clean, papa." Yui assured him.

Kirito glanced over at the innocently naive little girl. "That's no proof that it hasn't been tampered with." He denied her argument.

Asuna sighed. "Kirito-kun, the undines haven't poisoned the water supply."

"Of course they haven't." Kirito sent her a confused glance. "They'd get into trouble for that. But they've definitely done _something_ to it."

"Cleaned it, perhaps?" Asuna guessed, willing to let her husband get his new conspiracy theory out of his system by listening to him. He was kind of cute with the way he tended to obsess over things.

"It was perfectly drinkable before." Kirito denied her argument, still staring with suspicion at the water bottle. "I think Klein might've gotten drunk from it, yesterday. He was acting really weird."

"And what's to say that he didn't drink _actual_ alcohol, rather than water?" Asuna asked, sending a sympathetic glance to Yui who had resorted to pouting in her forcibly prolonged moment of thirst.

Kirito frowned. "It's possible, I suppose." He admitted with great reluctance, taking a final suspicious sniff of the contents of the bottle, before handing it back to Yui. "But I've heard rumors, Asuna. And they all agree that there's probably 'something in the water'."

Asuna desperately hid her laughter behind her hand. "Kirito-kun. You do know that that's a kind of saying, right? It's used to describe a group of individuals who act oddly for some reason."

Kirito nodded. "I know that. But I _also_ know that when _everyone_ start agreeing on a very specific way of phrasing it, then there's usually some kind of Event involved. And the undines messing with the water-supply fits the bill perfectly."

Asuna couldn't hold back her laughter any more, but when he started pouting at her for not believing him – managing to look startlingly like their daughter as he did so – she managed to get it under control for long enough that she could kiss him.

Yui had managed to grab the water-bottle and distract herself to elsewhere, so it wasn't like they couldn't let their hands wander for a bit.

From the way Kirito's arms snaked around her waist, he'd had much the same thought.

XXX (The Faeries' Royal Family) XXX

Nobody in Halkeginia knew exactly how it'd come to be that the God-Queen Asuna had been married to a seemingly average – if highly skilled – faerie. There were of course some hints about Kirito being called the 'Hero of Aincrad', or some variation thereof. But beyond his actions having played an instrumental part in winning a long and bloody campaign, nobody could quite see how they would've even met.

A Queen might be someone who rewarded heroes – especially truly distinguished ones – but despite the many tales of 'princesses' marrying heroes both left and right, 'queens' generally weren't supposed to do that.

A queen was either a monarch in her own right – and thus should only marry for the sake of her country's prosperity, rather than any heroism on her future husband's side of things – or they achieved the status of 'queen' by marrying to a king. And Kirito was definitely a hero rather than a king.

It was of course possible that faeries might be a bit more lenient about royalty marrying 'commoners', especially considering that they were generally almost dismissively relaxed about the respect afforded to their various faction leaders and the like. But it still didn't give much of an explanation on the matter.

The fact that Kirito hadn't been inducted into some kind of ceremonial post and was generally referred to with a rather casual 'consort', and the more jokingly whispered 'boy-toy', certainly didn't help Halkeginia with their confusion on this matter.

However, the confusion didn't stop there.

The God-Queen was... well, nobody quite knew what she was, beyond being a faerie. Her husband – who didn't actually seem to hold any official capacity at all other than a general 'bodyguard' duty – was a spriggan. And their daughter, Princess Yui, was... a navigation pixie.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Kirito's younger sister was a sylph.

All in all, this raised the rather obvious question of 'how in the Founder's name do these faeries breed?'.

Not that anyone would ask such a crude question to anyone close enough to either member of the strange family that they might actually receive a satisfactory answer.

After all, if they'd known that the sylph was technically Kirito's cousin, and that Yui was adopted, they might not have been anywhere near as confused.

XXX


	2. Disgaea Online

XXX

 **Story** : [Disgaea Online]

 **Summary** : Kayaba had a very different vision for his grand creation. Also, he was less obsessed with transforming his dream into a new kind of reality and a lot more set on just... being a dick. By the time the players get free, their view of reality is a little bit... wonky.

 **Crossover** : (Sword Art Online) / (Disgaea)

 **Genre** : Humor

XXX

It was weird, how consistent the lighting was.

Just... a constant light, with a barely perceivable humming. Instead of the flickering of braziers and uneven light of nearby lava. It was a bit like Jotunheim, except without the blood-freezing cold, and less of that... ever-present kind of light. With Jotunheim it was more as if there had been light once, and the light was still trapped within it, turning the whole area into a bright winter's day, regardless of what time it was.

Electrical lighting was weird.

The sound of traffic wasn't so bad. Of course there was always going to be some kind of distant noise, whether it be a crackling firestorm that didn't move any closer or people fighting all the way through the night. Not that there was a way to tell night from day in the Netherworld.

So even if the car-horns and emergency sirens, and whatever else, did sound very different from what Kirito had grown used to, it wasn't something that was all that hard to ignore.

More difficult was the boredom, honestly. Stuck in the hospital like this, there was even a limit to the amount of physical therapy he could do in a day without hurting his body more. Instead he had to lay in bed, staring at the ceiling or propping himself up to stare out through the window, either way the view was about equally entertaining.

In the beginning, Kirito hadn't minded it too much. It was a nice sort of break from the constant stress-levels that'd been the final few areas of the Netherworld being cleared, from trying to figure out what the hell Heathcliff's deal was.

In hindsight, it should've been so obvious. A brilliant leader who deceived them all into throwing their weight behind him and his claim as Overlord, it was a perfect kind of story, depending on how Kayaba would've wanted it to play out there at the end.

Kirito hadn't figured that out before Heathcliff had knelt in defeat though. Up until that point, he'd just figured that maybe they shouldn't actually trust the man who might actually be a sociopath. A sociopath placed in a position of power? Why should he let them go back to their own world afterwards? Wouldn't it be so much more pleasing to his ego if they could all remain in the Netherworld and serve him as their unquestionable Overlord?

Asuna hadn't been quite as certain about Heathcliff's personality as Kirito had been, but she had become somewhat disillusioned by what kind of people were allowed to join up with the Knights of the Blood. One rotten egg here or there trying to start a fight and being assholes? That was one thing, Asuna hadn't hesitated in her duties as the Vice Commander to smack them a good one for causing trouble for the rest of them. But several dozens of rotten eggs? Where the assholes were recruiting even more people like themselves, with Heathcliff never seeming to listen to her worries about where their guild was going?

Asuna had broken it off with the Knights of the Blood several months ago, with good reason.

But Heathcliff had still been one of the biggest factions among the Clearers, and if he won the final battle he would become Overlord. Kirito knew there were plenty of other assholes who wanted that title for their own obsessive reasons, but there was a difference between an asshole who everyone knew was an asshole, and a well-respected one.

So Kirito had gone into that final battle, despite being part of the solo-guild, with the full intent of giving Heathcliff enough of a beat-down that someone else could claim the title of Overlord in the aftermath.

Except... thanks to Klein and his guild showing up to help, they'd ended up not just exhausting Heathcliff enough that someone else could swoop in and claim the title instead, but actually to the point of defeating him on their own. And when they'd turned around to brace themselves for the other guilds trying to charge at them, those guilds had all managed to wipe each other out.

The few scattered members of the solo-guild were basically the only people left standing. So their guild-leader should be the one who became Overlord, by default.

Except, of course, they didn't actually have a guild-leader, because they were the solo-guild and they'd only created that because everyone needed a guild to classify as a Clearer.

Theoretically, as the solo-guild member with the highest level, Kirito would've been the one chosen as the new Overlord, except he'd managed to figure that out quickly enough to ruthlessly throw himself to the floor in defeat before Asuna. Because there was a big difference between a former member of a proud guild, and a constant member of the wishy-washy solo-guild, one of the more prominent members of that group of asocial weirdos who tried to act 'neutral' in what was basically a giant PvP-event.

Kirito didn't doubt that if becoming an Overlord had ended up requiring some degree of democracy more than just punching everyone else into submission, Kirito would've ended up losing almost instantaneously. The same could not be said for Asuna.

She was well respected, even if people might've ended up a bit peeved at her for abandoning her guild in order to become the Overlord on her own.

And then the whole shebang had played out the way it had.

Heathcliff revealing himself in his defeat, the path to the Archangel opening, Yui interfering against the NPC that'd been programmed to judge them as unworthy for claiming the title of Overlord through battle, and then... the game ending.

Kirito had woken up in a hospital bed, in a body barely able to move, when his previous one could've survived a head-on collision with a speeding train without even a scratch.

So, for a bit there, it'd been nice to just... lay down for a while, and try to wrap his head around everything that'd happened. But there was a limit to how much thinking Kirito was willing to do in an average day, and boredom was very much a constant enemy.

It was hard to be entertained by blank walls and a soft breeze through a distant tree, when you'd become used to dodging magically summoned meteors lobbed at your head. When your own magic pulsed with the beat of your racing heart, and the world warped around the edge of your sword.

Say what you would about Kayaba trapping them all in that place, but it'd been one hell of a game to experience.

Not that Kirito wasn't aware how very close they'd come to falling for one of Kayaba's back-up plans of screwing them over in victory. In fact, they would've been forced to fight the Archangel if Yui hadn't interfered when she had, and Kirito honestly wasn't sure how ludicrously overpowered the Final Boss of the game would've been, so that could easily have ended with the whole lot of them waking up as Prinnies.

Kirito had been a Prinny twice over at this point, and it was still one of the absolute worst experiences ever. It was just something about losing both of his thumbs at once that kind of ruined your day rather thoroughly, even if it did give you a good opportunity to consider Reincarnating into a different class.

The ability to Reincarnate into a giant dragon or not, being forced to spend at least a month of grinding as an explosive penguin with peg-legs, just because your partied wiped against something?

Dick move, Kayaba, dick move.

XXX

"How's our new Overlord doing, anyway?" Klein asked, sounding like he was grinning.

"Pretty sure her mom heard someone call her that, so now she's grounded." Kirito wasn't entirely sure if that was the full story, but it was the only parts Asuna had been willing to share, so he wasn't going to say anything more.

"Ouch." Klein huffed a laugh. "Dunno how she can be grounded and hospitalized at the same time, but it doesn't sound fun."

"Speaking of fun, has Argo made any progress with lighting people on fire with her mind, yet?" Kirito felt his lips stretch in a tired grin at the memory of hearing about that particular plan of hers.

"Not that I know of." A bit of Klein's humor drained away into something weary. "Heard someone nearly stabbed a doctor while yelling about 'doodz trying to steal stuff', though."

Ah, yes. Prinnies were... prime target for PK-ers, what with being in new and awkward bodies that still had all of their cash, even if their human-gear would end up safely stashed away. Not that cash was really important... unless you were buying gear, or needed to be Reincarnated. Honestly, it was more just assholes picking on people who were down on their luck, than a functioning business-model.

So, if a player who spent a lot of time as a Prinny for whatever reason, was startled? They could get violent. Especially so if they were in a body that they weren't happy with, such as a Prinny's weakened state, or their real body atrophied by the NerveGear coma.

It was a bit disturbing to hear the speaking-tic outside of the game, but it wasn't like he hadn't heard it being done by pretty much everyone at one point or another. Kirito had done it himself for a couple of days after his first stint as a Prinny. His second stint he'd kept his mouth determinedly shut for long enough that it hadn't affected his speech-pattern when he finally Reincarnated again, but that'd been because he knew Argo personally and she was absolutely the kind of person who'd hold that kind of slip-up over his head for the rest of eternity.

"That's going to go down well." Kirito sighed. "At least none of Argo's stupid spells actually require activation-phrases."

"You sure you wanna call the fire-mage stupid?" Klein made an uncomfortable noise. "Even if she's not listening, it doesn't mean she won't hear about it somehow."

Kirito made a vague noise of protest. "She lit me on fire way too many times for me to be nice about it." Kirito had been a Prinny a few of those times. A poor and explosive Prinny. Kirito was pretty damn sure it hadn't been on accident, no matter what Argo claimed.

Also, Argo was already fully aware of Kirito's opinion on her magical ability, so it wasn't like he was going to end up in trouble over it. Even if Argo managed to somehow achieve omniscience through sheer stubbornness, and used it to listen in on people she knew. Though, honestly, Kirito wouldn't entirely put that kind of thing past her.

The statement about activation-phrases was still solid though. If Argo had been chanting weird phrases at people, instead of just glaring at them and willing them to ignite, there would probably be a lot more calls to politicians and stuff to deal with their craziness. Not that anyone had ever really used activation-phrases for their magic attacks. Shouting that kind of stuff was all well and good in a manga or something, but real battles were kind of a lot more fast-paced than that.

No point in beginning to speak an activation-phrase or something, only to have someone punch you in the throat. Magic was slow enough to activate as it was.

XXX

Kayaba shook his head, still not entirely sure if he was proud or offended by the demands of this tiny part of his grand creation.

It was a small AI that was supposed to help people to not have mental breakdowns over people coming at them with a sword. Considering Kayaba's plans, he hadn't really been able to keep her around. She had enough admin control that she would be able to forcefully log out someone who was having enough emotional issues, which was... not good.

At the time, he hadn't been entirely sure if her forced log-out would trigger the NerveGear's anti-tampering protocols, or if it'd avoid it. Either way, it wasn't exactly a good idea for the game as Kayaba had envisioned it.

MHCP001, or Yui as her programming insisted on her being called, had therefore been shut down on launch. Kayaba hadn't really considered that she'd been hard-coded enough into the game that she didn't shut down completely, and that he'd accidentally maybe invented some new form of personalized torture for this AI that he'd created.

The panic-attacks of the players might've gotten less frequent over time, but emotional distress had very much still been prevalent all across the Netherworld all the way up until the very end. So, for the AI to be denied the ability to help, despite her programming demanding that she help, had likely been a rather harrowing experience.

She didn't really seem to hold a lot of grudges about it though. She understood why he'd done it, even if she disagreed, and seeing as everyone had been safely logged out, she'd decided to let bygones be bygones. Or she was trying to be the better person.

She was an angel, after all. Their inherent programming was a bit different from the demons that Kayaba had ended up spending so much time overseeing the AIs of.

Back to the issue of whether he was proud or offended by the small AI, Kayaba could admit that it was probably more proud than offended. A bit stunned by her daring towards her own creator, but not truly angry about it.

For all that he'd planned to betray the players three times over – both with him trapping them in the game and him setting himself up as their Overlord, as well as the tiny little backup-plan for if another Overlord was chosen – he'd never considered himself a sore loser. If he lost, he lost. And he'd definitely been defeated.

Honestly, he was more worried about that boy's social life than anything. Normal people didn't spend what must've been over a hundred hours a week, just constantly grinding for levels. Kayaba wished his former Vice Commander well, if she was really trying to get into that boy's pants, she was probably going to need every bit of luck she could manage.

No, he knew how to lose gracefully. The reason for his torn feelings in regards to Yui, was the fact that she'd twisted his own rules against him.

Someone had been trying to capture the players that had been logged out, probably by whatever company had ended up in charge of the physical servers. And Yui wanted him to stop them. Kayaba hadn't really seen the point. He'd given them all an open path to freedom, if someone else screwed them over, that was up to them to deal with.

However, there was a small problem with that idea. Kayaba hadn't given them the order to go away and be free. The Overlord had ordered everyone to be logged out. And the Overlord was the indisputable leader of all demons. And Kayaba in his avatar of Heathcliff, was in fact a demon.

Therefore, he had to help everyone to properly log out of the game. That was Yui's logical reasoning, and Kayaba was absolutely going to leave some kind of message to Kirito at this point. As the AI's adopted father, Kirito should really keep his daughter from running around blackmailing sociopaths into communal service.

Still, as the one who was defeated, despite all of the advantages that he really should've had – he'd been secretly boosting his EXP-rate for months at this point, how the hell was Kirito still higher level than he was? – Kayaba had agreed.

He'd even decided to be a particularly helpful Samaritan and plaster Sugou's attempt all over a whole bunch of media-places. All to better serve his indisputable Overlord, whose parents were apparently in business with the man, and whom a few security-cameras showed had been visiting the newly-crowned Overlord's bedside to drool over her unmoving form.

Never let it be said that Kayaba was a sore loser. Or that he wasn't a viciously ruthless bastard.

No, the reason he felt so much pride in regards to Yui's apparent personality, was that she'd been the one who'd convinced him to take that extra step and check the hospital's cameras. Apparently she was quite determined to set both of her parents up with each other, even if one of them had the social life of a crazy person in a basement, and Sugou had been in the way.

That kind of ruthlessness made Kayaba more than a little proud.

Especially considering how she was still wearing that angel-avatar of hers, which would mean that she'd be fighting against the constant 'forgiveness is everything'-subroutine that was inherent in that class.

Ah, but if only she'd been a devil instead, what kind of horrors could she then not have wrecked upon the unsuspecting populace of the world?

At least up until her mother grounded her, as she would've been a demon and therefore forced to obey the Overlord's every order. So, perhaps she had good reason to remain in that particular form. Kayaba, himself trapped in a digital form after the death of his true body, could appreciate that kind of foresight.

She was like the evil little granddaughter he'd never wanted.

XXX

Suguha didn't really know what her brother had been through in that horrible game of his.

What she did know was that his thought-process had been a bit... corrupted, from the long habit of weird things happening around him. Suguha knew this because it was something that the doctors had told her parents, and herself, to be wary of.

Mostly though, Kazuto was just constantly bored. Which was weird, because her brother usually loved slacking off or shutting himself inside of a room. The idea that him being inside of a room on his own was boring to him said some promising things about his future social-life. Maybe. Probably not though, it wasn't like the hospital had his beloved gaming-computer in it, or even decent internet. He'd be lost to the world the moment they were given the go-ahead to take him back home, Suguha was resigned to that.

No, weirder than that was that Kazuto had found friends. Friends whom he talked to without using some kind of computer-chat. _This_ gave Suguha some hope about her brother's social-life, but she wouldn't put it past Kazuto to make friends with people who were just as reclusive as himself, so that might be a false kind of hope.

There was some talk about a girl though, and if Kazuto had somehow managed to find a girlfriend before Suguha found a boyfriend she'd probably never live with the shame. He spent nearly his every waking moment locked inside of a room, and Suguha did sports and made friends with people. And-... And, if there was any justice in the world, and Kazuto _did_ somehow manage to find a girlfriend before Suguha found a boyfriend, then Suguha really hoped that she'd at least be ugly.

They would've met inside of a video-game after all, so that'd make sense, right? Even if Suguha felt a little bit petty about wishing for that kind of thing. It'd just be too humiliating for words to find out that her recluse of a brother had scored some kind of photo-model girlfriend, when Suguha herself hadn't even dated at all.

Sure, he was older than her, so she'd still have a couple of years before her parents started making weirdly speculative noises about it, but if Kazuto beat her in acquiring-speed, then Suguha wanted to at least beat him in quality. She was supposed to be the social one of the two of them, after all.

However, ignoring that particular can of worms, Suguha didn't really understand her brother and his friends. Like, the way he'd joked about 'prinnies' being in charge of cooking the hospital-food. Apparently, they were some kind of servant who didn't have thumbs? So Kazuto had thought that it was funny to compare the blandness of hospital-food with that kind of potential for inability.

It was... in hindsight, maybe a little bit funny? By the time Kazuto had explained the whole joke, it was more sad than funny, but Suguha had been missing the reference, so it might've been funny to some of the other people in the game.

There was also how he often ended up calling those other people on the phone, talking about lots of different things that Suguha might've been able to piece together if only she'd been able to hear both sides of the conversation.

Like, what was Jotunheim, and what did it have to do with winter? And what did the cold weather have to do with 'Argo' trying to be helpful? And why would Kazuto have had a speech-impediment at any point, let alone one bad enough that someone could blackmail him over it? And why was he blaming 'Asuna' – and wasn't that his girlfriend? – for it?

She'd missed out on a large portion of her big brother's life, and it was a bit depressing to find. Sure, they hadn't exactly been all that close before, but they'd still been sort of peripherally aware of everything. Okay, about most things, anyway. The big stuff, at least. They'd had the option to learn more about it anyway, if they'd just talked.

Actually meeting Kazuto's friends kind of dashed a lot of her assumptions about them though.

Asuna was gorgeous – so unfair, Kazuto was probably hogging all of the dating-luck in the family, the selfish hermit. Klein turned out to be way older than him and looked like a bum. Agil was married and owned a bar. Argo was a girl – and was always glaring at everyone as if she was trying to light them on fire with her mind or something. Sachi was also a girl and seemed to have a crush on Kazuto – that he seemed completely oblivious to, and Suguha wondered if there was a story there. Silica was an adorable girl closer to Suguha's age than Kazuto's and not at all a giant fire-breathing dragon – and also seemed to have a crush on Kazuto, what the fuck, since when had her brother become popular with girls? And Lisbeth was proven to be a girl as well – despite Kirito's comments about how she was a Prinny too often to know for sure, which explained nothing at all.

All in all, meeting Kazuto's friends was an experience.

It didn't help matters when Kazuto explained that Argo _was_ in fact trying to light people on fire with her mind, because she'd been some kind of fire-mage character, and was firmly in denial about magic being nothing but a gameplay-mechanic. Or that it was apparently really weird to see Silica's actual face, instead of the many many sharp teeth, because her character had been a literal freaking dragon? Kazuto had apparently tried being a few other things too, since he'd have to reincarnate anyway – and what the hell was that supposed to mean?

Sachi belonged to a small guild who'd more imprinted on Kazuto than the other way around, seeing as they'd been the ones to track him down after the game completed. Sachi seemed to very much be the driving force behind this decision on their part, despite looking about as harmless as someone capable of being scared of their own shadow could manage to be. Apparently she'd spent so much time being literally made of fire, that having a shadow was weird to her now? Either way, Kazuto considered her a distant, if friendly, acquaintance or something.

Klein had some weird tic about ending all of his sentences with 'degozaru', which Suguha would've never believed to be a real thing if she hadn't met him herself. Agil was pretty normal, except for the fact that he was a giant black man who looked like he'd literally turned into a skeleton or something. Sure, everyone had a degree of gauntness in their faces because of the coma and stuff, but Agil really took it to the next level. He looked basically halfway-dead, and it made Suguha more than a little bit nervous, because nobody else seemed to be worried about it.

Lisbeth was apparently part of another tiny guild who were actually all pretty bad at fighting, and kept getting in over their heads, which meant that they ended up as Prinnies a lot of the time. Not that anyone really explained how that worked to Suguha, but it explained maybe a little bit about Kazuto not really noticing that she was a girl most of the time. Prinnies were supposed to look like peg-legged penguins, and penguins weren't really super-obvious about genders.

Asuna though. Asuna looked delicate where everyone else looked malnourished, and she wore it with that gentle kind of fierceness that Suguha was just instantly jealous. Her brother had literally landed himself with some kind of rich-girl photo-model, the asshole. How was Suguha supposed to outdo him now? She was doomed to failure, and dammit but that was just so unfair.

Also, Asuna and Kazuto were definitely dating, though Suguha wasn't entirely sure what they were talking about when they talked about 'their daughter Yui', because you weren't supposed to be able to have kids in a video-game, right? Suguha wasn't even sixteen yet, she was way too young to be an aunt!

In the end, Argo was the one to reassure her about that. Mainly because she said something about the two of them being weirdos who adopted an angel.

Suguha wasn't entirely sure how angels showed up in the conversation, but adoption she understood, and it was a great relief. That probably meant that Yui already had parents of her own, so Suguha wouldn't have to worry about becoming an aunt early on. Phew. Dodged a bullet there.

XXX

 **A/n: Yes, I started writing this because I finally got around to picking up Disgaea. Not really my type of game, but it was kind of fun, and the world is hilarious enough that I obviously had to play around with it for a little bit.**


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